CCJ legislation to be tabled by month end - minister

JUSTICE MINISTER Senator Mark Golding says pieces of legislation that will enable Jamaica to subscribe to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as its final appellate court will be tabled in the House of Representatives before the end of the month.

In a letter, dated July 20, to his opposition counterpart, Delroy Chuck, Golding said the relevant bills would be brought to Parliament before it rises for the summer recess.

The justice minister reminded Chuck that the People's National Party had pledged in its 2011 election manifesto that it would complete the long journey of delinking from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the United Kingdom and fully embrace the CCJ.

He said the manifesto commitment was made with the intention of affording the majority of Jamaicans the opportunity to exercise the fundamental right of access to their highest court.

Golding argued that the vast majority of Jamaicans have been denied this basic right for some 180 years, ever since the Judicial Committee was established in 1833.